Astronomers from NASA have discovered that the unusual flashing stars RZ in the constellation of Pisces was associated with the fact that this light has «eaten» some of their own planets in the past year and left a giant cloud of «leftovers», says the article, published in the Astronomical Journal.

«Our observations show that the orbit of this star has a few giant clouds of dust and gas that sometimes block the light of stars, and most likely, move to her side. There are other possible explanations, but we believe that these clouds have arisen as a result of disintegration of large objects near the sun,» says Christina, Crimson (Kristina Punzi) from the Rochester Institute of Technology (USA).

RZ star in the constellation Pisces, distant from the Earth about 550 light years, was discovered in the early 1960s, and until recently it was considered to be an ordinary young star, whose age did not exceed 10-20 million years.

Three years ago, she attracted the attention of Russian astronomers from the Pulkovo Observatory, has noticed some anomalies in the chemical composition of the atmosphere of the star, pointing out that his actual age and nature may be completely different. For example, an excess of infrared radiation and unusual features of its spectrum suggests that it may be so-called «star-Phoenix», the elderly red giant, rejuvenated due to the absorption of matter other luminaries.

According to the Crimson, at the beginning of this year the situation is more complicated – RZ start mysteriously «flashing». The brightness of the stars, as shown by the observation of it, several times dropped sharply and this, star of the Eclipse lasted for several days. This behavior is not typical for young stars in this age that forced scientists to comprehensively study this light, using the orbiting XMM-Newton telescope and several ground-based observatories.

These observations revealed two unusual features of blinking stars – it really is a young star, whose age does not exceed 30-50 million years, and it is surrounded by several clouds of dust and gas, similar to protoplanetary disks.

Both, according to the astronomers, it is almost impossible to combine — RZ at the same time and too old to have dust «cocoon», which formed a new planet, and too young for such accumulations of matter could arise in its orbit by dumping part of its membranes, that occurs with the elderly red giants.

«Most stars similar in size and properties to the Sun, lose their protoplanetary disks in the first few million years of life. What is RZ in the constellation Pisces surrounds so much gas and dust, suggests that this light destroys, not creates a new planet,» adds Ben Zuckerman (Ben Zuckerman) from the University of California at Los Angeles (USA).

Scientists assume that these clouds of dust arose in the very recent past, when RZ ripped one or several planets to pieces, samishisa with her at a dangerously close distance. These clusters of matter are now at a distance of about 50 million kilometers from the star, and soon, as scientists believe, they fall on its surface.